Verbs + "with"

Some verbs require the word "with." Here's a list of the most common verbs that require "with".

agree with

collaborate with

comply with

credit A with B

enamored with

provide with

sympathize with

The idioms involving "agree", "collaborate", and "sympathize" are most like the accompaniment use of "with", in #5 above: in all three of these, the object of "with" is a person with whom some has some kind of affiliation or affinity, or that person's view.

6) The Human Resources Director does not agree with the CFO's plans for redesigning the employee retirement options.

8) Despite a lifetime of opposition, the nun sympathized with her gravely ill opponent.

Similar to these is the idiom involving "enamored." To be "enamored with" someone or something is to really like it: it has a connotation of something like romantic infatuation or passionate enthusiasm.

8) For many years, Yeats was enamored with Maud Gonne, who rejected Yeats' marriage proposals on four different occasions.

9) Although Jefferson was enamored with the idea of liberty and equal rights for all, the Southern delegates to the Continental Congress were successful in demanding that phrases condemning slavery be removed from the Declaration of Independence.

The idiom involving "provide" is most like the means example, #3 above. Here, the object of the proposition "with" is a physical or metaphorical support given to someone.

10) The resupply station provided the hungry soldiers with much-needed food.

11) A young Reagan secretly provided the HUAC with damning information about his fellow actors.

12) Aquinas' Summa Theologica provided Dante with a vast philosophical system within which to frame his famous drama.

The idiom involving both "credit" and "comply" is somewhat analogous to the manner example, #4 above, only insofar as the object of "with" is necessarily something abstract. In the idiom "to credit A with B", A is the person who receives the credit, and B is the quality or accomplishment attributed to the person.

13) Even his political foes credit the prime minister with exceptional integrity.

14) Although Gregor Mendel enjoyed scant scientific recognition, current biologists universally credit him with the discovery of genetics.

In the idiom to "comply with X", the X is a law, a rule, or some other abstract authoritative principle.

15) The CEO fired the vice president for repeatedly failing to comply with company policy.

Comparisons and other relationships

Here are three idioms that, in one way or another, are used in how we would compare or relate two things.

compare A with B

contrast A with B

consistent with

One of the many ways to construct a grammatically correct comparison is to use the verb "compare" with the preposition with.

17) Compared with most Old World wines, California wines are simpler and more fruit dominant.

This latter form, using the participle "compared" + "with", is common on the GMAT Sentence Correction --- "Compared with A, B …" --- and of course, A and B must be in parallel.

For the word "contrast", we need to be careful. If we are actively discussing a person who is performing the contrast, then we can say this person "contrasts A with B."

18) In the novel Pudd'nhead Wilson, Mark Twain contrasts the utter privilege enjoyed by the aristocracy in the antebellum South with arbitrary and dismal fate of slaves.

Many times, especially on GMAT Sentence Correction, the sentence forms a contrast and who is doing the contrast is not important. By idiom and unlike with "compare", we do not use the participle form of the verb

Contrasted with A, B ...

That will always be wrong. The correct idiom is "In contrast with A, B …"

19) In contrast with the single-book scriptures of each of the three great Western Religions, the Pali Canon, the standard collection of the scriptures of Theravada Buddhism, easily would fill a large bookcase, although ironically, Buddhism is much less text-based than are its Western counterparts.

The idiom involving the adjective "consistent" is similar, although discussion of consistency differs from comparisons per se. When we say A is consistent with B, we generally mean that B is some larger system or set of rules, and A is something that "fits into" this larger system.